


In The Beginning...

by kashmir



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-30
Updated: 2005-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashmir/pseuds/kashmir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Wash get Zoe to marry him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Beginning...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Secret Santa Dabble a Drabble Project. Since I'm done, I can share these with the rest of the world. =)

Thinking back, she realized she hadn't noticed how handsome he was -- especially when he smiled -- until after he'd shaved that hideous mustache off. She'd made her way up to the bridge that morning for something -- she couldn't remember what now -- and he'd turned around in the pilot chair and smiled at her, that same smile he'd been giving her every morning for months.

Except this time, this time it stopped her dead in her tracks. She mumbled something about having to go back to her bunk for something (her composure) not waiting to see if he bought her excuse or not.

Zoe pinpoints that moment as the moment she started falling for Wash.

...

Wash knows when he meets Zoe, she is different from every other woman he has ever met. Not that he has ever met a warrior woman before (which is one huge difference, in and of itself) but it's not just that.

He's never met anther woman who willingly chose a life out in the black. Sure, he knew woman pilots from flight school but none of them had ever understood his depth of the love for the sky and the freedom it represented.

Over the course of long nights spent talking on the bridge, covering every topic from their childhood's to favorite foods to their reasons for living life way out in the black.

Zoe got his love of the sky and its freedom. It's what makes him fall for her.

...

The first time Wash gets kissed by Zoe, he is drunk. This does not affect his memory of that night. Well. Most of the night is a blur. The kiss, however, is not.

They'd all gotten a decent pay for once and the captain had splurged on mulled wine for the whole crew. What had started out as a mild celebratory dinner ended up as a rowdy drunken feast. Mal had stumbled to his bunk about a half hour earlier, leaving Wash with Zoe, Jayne and Kaylee.

Jayne and Kaylee were preoccupied trying to pretend like they weren't drunkenly groping one another. Which left Wash and Zoe to their own devices.

It got fuzzy for Wash around that point in time and the next thing he can clearly remember is Zoe helping him to his bunk.

He was leaning unsteadily against the wall, trying desperately not to pass out. Zoe was trying to get the door to his open, with little success and much cursing in Mandarin.

Apparently the first mate was as drunk as the rest of the crew. Wash seemed to find that fact hysterical. When he started giggling (he was man enough to admit to a fit of the giggles occasionally), Zoe turned and demanded to know what was so gorram amusing. Unfortunately, she hadn't accounted on how inebriated she really was and, quite literally, fell into Wash's arms.

"Hello," he said, looking down at her slumped form and upturned face.

She answered him by giving him a huge grin and cupping his face. Bringing their faces close together. Less than an inch apart.

"Hello there, pilot."

And then she planted one on him.

Promptly passing out in his arms, immediately after the most amazing kiss of Wash's life. Wash chuckled to himself then somehow managed to maneuver them both into his bunk. He sleeps on the floor that night and Zoe is more than a little embarrassed upon waking in his bed the next morning.

Wash brushed off her stammering, gave her coffee and kissed her forehead. Effectively shutting her up.

Wash never looks at mulled wine -- or the first mate of Serenity -- the same after that night.

...

Wash doesn't mean to ask her to marry him by yelling it at her in the cargo bay in front of… everyone.

That is, however, exactly what happens.

He knows if he hadn't been trying for three weeks by that point to work up the nerve, always chickening out at the last minute, it probably wouldn't have come out. Well, not like that, anyway.

But he had and he did and Oh God. Was he going to get killed now?

She was walking towards him

And was Mal upholstering his weapon?

Oh, God, he thought. I am going to die.

Zoe stops directly in front of him, looking him in the eyes, face blank.

"Pilot, did you just ask me to marry you?"

"Uh… yes?" Wash hopes no one notices how his voice cracks when he answers.

"Well, then… I guess I don't have much else to say except yes."

"You have to say… what?"

"Yes."


End file.
